Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Roberts, Rick Windmills & She is a song


While singer/songwriter Rick Roberts is perhaps best known for his work with country-rock pioneers The Flying Burrito Brothers and late 70s hit makers Firefall ,in between those two endeavors he recorded these two albums for A & M Records.
While hardly setting the charts on fire they remain good examples of the kind of appealing country-rock The Eagles would later take to the top of the charts.
When Chris Hillman left the Flying Burrito Brothers to join Manassas in 1971 Rick Roberts lead the Burrito's for a European tour before recording his debut solo album:Windmills.
David Aderle was assigned to be the producer and the cream of the L.A. country-rock community centered around the Troubadour was recruited.
They were all "friends" of Rick Roberts and very good musicians and they came up with a lot of ideas that added a great deal to the album.
The album's tittle derives from the dedication to a Dutch/American girl Rick Roberts met while touring the Netherlands with the Burrito's.
The musicians on Windmills are:Don Henley,Bernie Leadon,Randy Meisner,Jackson Browne,Al Perkins,Joe Lala,Chris Hillman,Dallas Taylor,David Crosby,Mother Hen,Byron Berline,Lee Sklar,Mike Utley,Marc Benno and of course Rick Roberts.

Settling in Boulder Colorado Rick Roberts recorded "She is a song" at a small independent studio.
Fresh from Manassas Chris Hillman assumed production duties.
Rick Roberts called on local players to grace the second album including Joe Walsh's Barnstorm and members of Poco.
The musicians are:Paul Harris,George Grantham,Al Perkins,Kenny Passarelli,Joe Lala,Joe Walsh,Chris Hillman,Joe Vitale,Rusty Young,Steve Fromholz and Rick Roberts.

touring solo to promote the second album Rick Roberts performed at Max's Kansas City early 1973,where he ran into Gram Parson's Fallen Angel Band.
Befriending Jock Bartley,a member of the Fallen Angels,they hooked up back in Boulder recruiting the musicians to form a group that became Firefall.

11 comments:

gormul said...

http://lix.in/-5d8c76

TheSeeker said...

Ha, this is funny. What you don't know is "She's a song" was a post candidate for me, instead of the Crosby recording. But I decided against it, because I wanted to post something newer. Afterwards it turns out that the decision was right, as my "She's a song" is a vinyl rip.
So many thanks for this gem.

Tucker(tje) said...

Thanks very much for yet another great and hard to find share! :)

Weekend Hippie said...

I met Rick once in the 70's, nice guy! He wrote some classics.

Mmany thanks for all your hard work!

Anonymous said...

One of the songs Roberts recorded was Paul Siebel's "She Made Me Lose My Blues." I picked up the Siebel album that came from, Woodsmoke and Oranges, on another site (I don't remember which), and I think I may also have Siebel's second album, Jack Knife Gypsy. Any interest (and how would I get you the files?)

Frank S. Hurrat

TheSeeker said...

@Anonymous:

Thank you.
Just paste the links in the shoutbox.
I see them there.

TheSeeker

Cohalen said...

Such a great set of albums! No collection should be without these.
I had the vinyls until I put thme in my Hard drive - then my hard drive crashed & I discovered I had no back-up. Thanks for having this here!

swazifiction said...

Greetings.I'd loved RR's work in the revamped Burritos and was excited when these were first released on vinyl back in the days. Unfortunately, RR had no presence at all in the UK so I had to order these on import. I loved them then & I still love them now. Thanks. BTW, has anybody a copy of the Burritos 'Live in Amsterdam'? It was a double LP, released on the Bumble label.

goldenneedle said...

Hello Lads, Any chance someone could reload a live link to this jem? Appreciated !

Vergergc said...

Hey - never thought I'd find these 2 original RR albums. Is it possible to re-up the files? I can't get http://lix.in/-5d8c76 to work.

Thanks - great stuff, TheSeeker!

Vergergc said...

Hey, great stuff - never thought I'd find these 2 original RR albums. Can you please re-up the files? Thanks very much!!